


Follow You

by lordleo



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Demons, Bottom GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Cuddling & Snuggling, Demon/Human Relationships, Family Dynamics, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Minecraft Mechanics, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Protective Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Protective GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Top Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), War/Battle, more tags on that when we get to it ;), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:21:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29114433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordleo/pseuds/lordleo
Summary: Realities collide on a rain-soaked Friday night in Florida when Dream, a newly outlawed demon on the run from the tyrannical ruler of the Nether, makes an eleventh hour escape in the midst of battle, and his life ends up in the trembling hands of human university student George.George and his roommate Sapnap later find themselves wishing that running with a pack of demons came with an instruction manual.-in other words, the demon/minecraft irl hybrid au that nobody asked for :]
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 94





	1. avalanche - opening

“Dream, I’m so sorry, you were under my legion, my _care_ , I should’ve done better at hiding you, should’ve thought of a way to - to buy you more time, I -”

“Stop apologising.” Dream’s voice is hoarse when he interrupts. He steadies a tight, heavy hand onto Wilbur’s shoulder, shakes his head. “There’s nothing more you could’ve done for me. Go, you and Quackity need to get Tommy and Tubbo out of here. Karl and Bad are waiting for you at the safe house. Don’t come back.”

Another shattering blow to the fragile crimsonwood of the cabin’s door makes the both of them flinch. Wilbur nods fervently through the tears dampening his cheeks, giving a firm squeeze to Dream’s hand before he slips out of its grip and makes a bolt for the stairs leading down to the bunker. 

Dream watches him go, chest rattling when he blows out a painful, shaky breath, and he closes his eyes once Wilbur leaves his sight. He reaches a hand over his shoulder to pull his axe from the brown leather sheath on his back. None of this should’ve happened. He shouldn’t have been found, he’d been so _careful_ -

A rogue piglin smashing its way through the window of the makeshift kitchen tears Dream from his thoughts like a downpour of ruthlessly icy water. The cold trickles down Dream’s spine, wraps harshly around his ribs when the piglin ( _not a brute_ , Dream notes with relief, judging from the plain leather tunic) takes its first step onto the cabin’s chipped blackstone flooring. 

Dream freezes.

Holds his breath. 

Counts down as he watches the piglin look around, take a heavy foot into the sitting room, _three_. 

Sniff at the air, look over to the hallway, _two_. 

Square its shoulders. _One_. 

The piglin catches Dream’s scent. It charges.

Dream lunges into action with an adrenaline fuelled swing of his axe. There’s a horrendous screech that grates on every single one of the fibres making up Dream’s nerves when the piglin blocks his hit with its own golden sword, reverberating against the smoky atmosphere with the telltale lilac glimmer of an enchantment, and it uses the momentum to walk Dream backwards until he has to stumble to keep upright. Dream grits his teeth, grunts when he’s forced to duck away from another swing of the piglin’s sword. Fuck.

“You’ve got hell to pay, Dream.” The piglin says, accented and languid from using a foreign tongue local to the Overworld instead of its own native, so that Dream’s total understanding of every single word is promised. It takes another swing that Dream doesn’t quite have the stamina to dodge in time, still unused to being without the razor-sharp focus that his status as a demon of wrath had granted; it catches him stark across the bicep, ripping an ugly split into the black fabric of the coat he wears to slash into the flesh underneath. Dream hisses and his opposite hand flies to clutch over the newborn laceration, deep and already pouring with blood, to try and protect it from any more damage. Pressure it into healing. “Your only luck is that you’ve already sold your soul.”

“Fuck off.” Dream spits, flexing his fingers shakily against the wound that throbs with a merciless amount of white-hot pain that hurts so bad, so _bad_ that Dream has to bite the inside of his cheek to stop from crying out. It has to be the work of sharpness four, at least, _it hurts so_ _bad_ , “I’m a _demon_ , we don’t have souls to be bought.” 

The piglin laughs. It’s a brittle, nasty sound. “You could have had me fooled. Why else did you commit the crime that you did, then, demon? If you didn’t feel your own selfish sense of justice? If you didn’t believe that you were playing hero when you saved the poor, _defenceless_ people of the End from their own _ruler_?”

The piglin throws its sword into the air, catches it by the blade. Dream’s stomach turns when he watches onyx blood begin to drip from its grip. It lurches forward with a snarl, holding the hilt of the sword high, and brings it back down with such a ferocious energy that Dream only just manages to avoid a total connection with his nose. It bruises narrowly against the bridge instead, knocks Dream back into the wall so hard that a gaping crack is left where his head makes contact, and with a howl of pain and frustration and _misery_ he kicks his foot out, hooks it around the piglin’s leg, _pulls._

The shock of being forced to lose its balance causes the piglin’s sword to clatter to the floor. The seconds it spends scrabbling to grasp at Dream’s jacket for leverage gifts Dream just enough time to bend his knees, clench his jaw, stiffen his stance into one made using only the hardest alloy of iron. Swallowing down the sharp splinters of dust that tear at the inside of his throat, he tries his best to ignore the steady, aching flow of _hurt, pain, hurt_ when the gash on his arm tears itself wider, _impossibly_ wider with the force that he uses to bring his axe down and _smash_ it against the piglin’s side. 

It pays off. It fucking pays off, when the axe embeds itself into the piglin’s stomach, and it crumples the rest of the way to the floor with a final, ear-shattering squeal. Piglins were extraordinarily strong, but that made them heavier on their feet, slower than the opponents that Dream trained against. He feels no remorse exploiting that. 

“I said to be _bought_ ,” Dream growls, and blood the colour of ink gushes thick like tar when he pulls his weapon out from the piglin’s body. He wipes roughly at his own blood where it begins to trickle from his nose. “My soul isn’t for sale. It never has been, and never will be. Tell that to your king, if you survive, and add that I’m saving the people of the _Nether_ next.”

A muffled shout of his name pulls Dream’s attention towards the door. 

“Dream! _Dream_ ! Run! _Now_!”

Dream’s bones turn to lead. He swings his axe back over his shoulder, popping it back into the sheath, and - cautious of the batterings at the door, still - Dream makes his way into the kitchen, where he climbs out of the window that the piglin had broken. Once his feet touch the nylium festering on the ground below, he presses his back to the wall of the cabin, creeps along its outline until he can peek around the edge, garner the situation on the porch. Dream holds on tight to the worn leather strap around his chest, feels against his knuckles the way his heart hammers at his ribs. _Easy, Dream. Steady._

Technoblade stands alone, fighting off three more piglins. He wields two swords, lashes out with them almost manically, and his hair is black where it sticks to his skin. A lone hoglin rams its tusks at the front door of the cabin. 

Dream closes his eyes. Lets his head drop back against the wall as he releases a soft, shuddering breath. He doesn’t breathe back in too deeply. The forest around him is _burning_ , the once vibrant blue of the trees now blackened as the leaves and vines perish to the flames, leaving behind only bare, solitary trunks. The nylium of the forest floor dwindles to nothing more than charred fragments when the netherrack underneath catches alight, cursed to remain ablaze forever. 

Dream’s throat tightens. He’s responsible for this. For a beautiful, _magical_ part of his home going up in flames, for his friends risking their lives and their respective legionary status to fight alongside him, _protect_ him. Dream swallows thickly and opens his eyes. Doesn’t make an attempt to try and wipe at them when they begin to prickle with hot, angry tears.

“Techno!” Dream’s voice is rasping when he shouts. “I’m ready!”

Techno spins around, cape billowing and stained with splatters of black, and he meets Dream’s gaze with a frenzied nod. He looks away towards the distance and Dream follows his line of sight until his eyes fall upon an unfamiliar structure, sticking out dark against the roaring orange of the forest, and suddenly, he gets it. Dream realises how he’s escaping. Technoblade, the _clever_ motherfucker.

It’s a little archaic; it hasn’t been used for almost a millennium, because pure obsidian is still rare to come by, and the people of the End had taught the demons their mastery of travelling by shadows upon their allegiance with the Nether eight centuries ago. But, it has one property that shadow travelling falls just short of - it’s completely, utterly untraceable on the other side, thanks to the advancements of the Overworld’s climate.

Techno throws a fire charge, and Dream runs.

He runs even though his lungs _burn_ , because this might be the last chance he has to breathe as a free man. 

He’s halfway there when a sharp sting to his side causes him to stumble, clutch at the patch of black undershirt that turns sticky almost instantaneously, and leaves the palm of Dream’s fingerless glove dripping with crimson when he pulls it away. He dares a glance to his six just in time to see one of the piglins lower its crossbow, to watch in horror as it grunts at the other two to desert Techno’s fight and chase after him instead. 

Dream wants to cry, wants to _sob_ , but instead he carries on, does his best not to give the tear of skin on his ribcage any attention. He carries on running, running, _running_ , runs until the last second he has, because only then does he shove his hand into the pocket of his jeans. Only then does he grab the bar of iron, and the fragment of flint. 

Techno’s fire charge reaches the TNT before Dream does. He rubs the iron and the flint together, hot and rough between his fingers and thumb, and once it blazes he hurtles it towards the portal to create a mesmerising explosion of glittering, vibrant swirls. Dream watches the TNT flash a giveaway danger of blinding white as he passes, flinches away reflexively before he’s jumping into the air, diving forwards, and he’s lost, set free, to the rippling mirage of purple. 

  
  
  


-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

  
  
  


On the other side, Dream staggers out of the rapidly-decaying obsidian frame, dropping dizzyingly fast onto his knees.

He doesn’t recognise where he is, when he tries to look around, but here he’s colder, and it’s dark. 

Dream’s head starts to swim around the same time his vision starts to blur. He sways for all of a second before he topples forward, not even bothering to brace his fall, and Dream’s cheek connects hard with something plush, soft, _incredible_ smelling. 

Is there a heaven for demons, now? 

There’s a faint sound of shattering glass behind him, and Dream smiles when the debris rains down from above, wheezing a weak sound of relief.

He passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this has been sat in my drafts for so long that it almost feels illegal to post bro)
> 
> hi there!!!! i'm lordleo, this is my first published work in a long while :) this little world has been the only thing keeping me sane at the minute between work and lockdown and things so i thought, why not share it? i might even end up making a few more socials like twitter to share my process with writing it and stuff if i see a few regular readers, so i can maybe make some new friends and hear some new ideas :] we shall seeeee
> 
> anyway, i hope this was a good opening!! i'm not too sure how ao3 works yet with regards to posting works so bare with me loool, let me know any thoughts in the comments 
> 
> hopefully i'll see u over at chapter 1!!!
> 
> BUT ALSO
> 
> before i go .....
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/143YJMBPAWhZSi7CbxMJ6T?si=eBIWVkySRPiz3zDF9DluYQ
> 
> i wanna share the playlist i made for writing this with u <3 i update it regularly as the mood changes and the song this fic is named after is in there too, give it a listen - it always makes me insanely emotional cause its one of my faves, fingers crossed u like it too :D
> 
> \- Lord Leo


	2. blasphemy - act i

It’s a dark, sleepy evening in Orlando tonight. The first harmless drizzle of rain had appeared mid-afternoon, and it showered steadily from then onwards, pleasant and even, dampening everything it touched with a glittering mirage of bright, multicoloured luminescence. It was beautiful alongside the daylight. At present, though, the sun is long gone, and its absence leaves room for a large, mesmerising crescent moon that paints the downpour in silver, bathing the streets of central Florida in a captivating sense of tranquility. 

It’s half past nine - the same composition of time on a Friday that always finds George sitting in the driver’s seat of his and Sapnap’s shared car, with three bags of shopping resting in the passenger’s side. He watches the droplets patter at his windscreen with a murmuring sense of dread. He has a _paper-wrapped_ bread loaf to carry inside.

George turns the engine off and pulls his keys from the ignition, slipping the biggest keyring around his finger. He opens the car door, grimacing when the hot, wet breeze he lets inside begins to bite without mercy, and he turns to gather his bags into his arms. He wraps the loaf separately inside his jacket. Snug against his chest, zipped up so no water could cause it to meet a premature, soggy demise.

George swings his feet out of the footwell and steps them carefully onto the worn asphalt of the road. It shines wet and beguiling underneath the dim amber glow of the street lamps. He stands and closes the car door with his hip, fumbling to click the lock button of his car key with a single hand, and he tightens his arms around his shopping. Bounces its weight testingly. It should be a one-way trip.

George looks both ways before he crosses the road. The lacklustre grey of the curb melts sharp into a sandy coloured beige where it convergences with a concrete pathway, nestled neat in between two plots of shimmering, slightly overgrown lawn. It follows up towards a quiet, modestly sized home, welcomed to life by a soft golden radiance seeping invitingly from behind the white linen curtains hanging in the windows, and by the curling tendrils of ivy growing down the faded cream of the front wall. 

Stepping under the awning of the porch, George rubs the spray of moisture from his eyelashes with his wrist and splays the keys hanging from his finger out across his palm. He feels around blindly until the oddly shaped ridges of the house key scrape against his index finger, and he hooks it triumphantly. He pushes it into the door and twists, _curses_ under his breath when he realises that the lock has jammed, yet again - why hadn’t he or Sapnap looked into a replacement yet? - but once he finally gets it to click he hurries inside without a further word. 

George shakes the damp out of his hair on the way in, pushing the door closed with his back. He leans against it with a soft sigh of relief when a cool swell of air floods arounds his hands and kisses gently at the burning tips of his ears. So, he _did_ leave the AC on before he left, and it’s such a small thing, maybe even no more than minor in the eyes of the majority, but as the fresh chill sinks deeper into George’s heated bones he can’t help but feel _slightly_ victorious. 

George had woken up today at around eight thirty, and he’d made pancakes for breakfast with Sapnap before he dropped him off at the airport. He bid his best friend goodbye at the terminal, wished him a safe flight, _text me when you land_. Sapnap had gotten teary-eyed and pulled him in for a rib-crushing hug, _don’t forget about me, Georgie_ , and George found that incredibly dumb because he was leaving to go home for his sister’s birthday, not to go and fight in a war that he might not _return_ from. 

Sure, it was the first time either of them were leaving for longer than a night since they’d moved in, but Sapnap had taken the ten thirteen flight out that morning and he was coming home on the eleven thirty flight the following Sunday night. So George had rolled his eyes, smiled fondly, and patted him gently on the back, _I won’t, moron, ‘cause it’s your turn to mop the basement when you get back._

George walks through to the kitchen and flicks on the lights, dumping his bags onto the worktop, and he unzips his jacket soon after to let the bread loaf free. He smiles slightly when he checks it over and acknowledges that it’s still dry. 

The wind whistles low at the locks of the windows as George starts to unpack his things, as slow as time allows, all too aware of the longevity of the day beginning to catch up with him in the form of a dull, barely-there ache, trying to tempt his muscles into a subtle state of stiffness. George sighs, braces his hands on the worktop, and leans forward to stretch out his back while he starts to count. Eggs, biscuits, fruit, vegetables, check. Yoghurt, cheese, cat food, sweets, teabags, bread. All check. 

George pushes off the worktop and starts to move around the kitchen. He works methodically, relaxed, and the tender, magnanimous peace allows him to think _freely_ for the first time today. After dropping Sapnap off, George had just come back home, ordered lunch in and worked on some assignments. Answered emails and caught up with some freelance IT work. It was boring, joy-threateningly mundane, and thinking more about his to-do list for the weekend makes George feel miserable. He can’t help but feel slightly dispirited at the thought of being alone for it all. He’d grown so accustomed to having Sapnap’s loud, demanding presence around, warm and fiery and clicking exactly into all of the attributes that George mirrors in his own demeanor. 

George falters slightly, thinking more about that, in the midst of rearranging the fridge drawer to fit his block of cheddar. 

He and Sapnap had become akin to brothers since moving in together, almost three months ago now, he realises. Like two sides of the same five pence coin; heads and tails, the Queen and her shield. 

George puts the cheese away and shuts the fridge. 

The rain starts to pour harder outside, pound rough against the poor outside walls, and George stands up, shakes off the looming feelings of loneliness. He turns to reach into the cupboard closest to the oven. George roots around for a second before he pulls out a saucepan that he fills with water from the tap and places on the stove. He sets the gas alight, readjusting the pan so it sits better on the burner. 

George watches the water ripple to peace, tiny bubbles making a home on the silver metal base, and then he grabs _another_ saucepan, and rests it on the burner adjacent. 

He turns and grabs some ingredients from his fridge, some from his cupboards, lays them out messy across the worktops. One tin of chopped tomatoes, _heaps_ of herbs and seasonings, two cloves of garlic, a few spoonful's of olive oil, a handful of chopped onion and half a cup of double cream later, and his sauce is simmering on low heat. His water is close to boiling, so George turns the heat down, adds some salt, and two nests of tagliatelle. 

_Don’t forget me, Georgie_ , as if. 

Once he cleans away his mess, George heads upstairs to the bathroom. He turns on the shower and strips out of his clothes, readying a towel on the hook, and steps in once the surrounding air turns humid and misty with the hot flow of steam. He stands under the pulsing stream of water for a while before he actually starts to wash. 

George’s eyes flutter shut as the tensions of the day are forcibly melted from his body, leaving him boneless and mellow and pliable, and the sensation only intensifies when he begins to lather up, the scents of eucalyptus and cedarwood mingling fruitfully with the fog inside the shower. He’s only drawn back down to Earth, a few ten minutes later, when he remembers that his sauce will probably need stirring. 

So George rinses away the suds of the shower gel, turns off the water and steps out into the gentle cool of the bathroom, grabbing his towel from the hook to wrap around his hips before he pads out into the dark of the landing. When he pushes the door open to his bedroom, the moonlight greets him in force; a kaleidoscope of monochromatic divinity, developed at the modest hands of the droplets that pattern the glass of the window. George takes his time towelling himself dry, and dresses in a cosy pair of black sweats, an old white tee, and a pair of fuzzy grey socks. 

Once he’s dressed he drifts over to his desk. The rain soundtracks a perfect feeling of pathetic fallacy, as George spends a few moments staring blankly at the past exam paper sitting next to his notebook from earlier today that he still needs to finish the last half of, as well as an essay that hasn’t even been _started_. George’s hand brushes over the papers, pushing them around, and he purses his lips. _It’s spring break in a week,_ he reminds himself _. Just seven more days_. He turns around with a soft sigh, trails his hand back to his side, and makes a trip back to the bathroom. 

There, George gathers his dirty clothes from the floor, and then he turns back out to the hall to step down the stairs, bypassing the ground floor entirely in reluctant favour of the basement.

It’s not that George finds the basement creepy - he just doesn’t like going down there too much. It’s bright, sure, and nice and cool when the dryer isn’t on. The walls are painted grey and there’s a few standing metal frames housing some more boxes that haven't been unpacked yet. But there’s always been a slight energy to the air that George can’t place, that makes him feel slightly too warm inside his own skin. Even Sapnap, who usually isn’t fazed by _anything_ , had agreed when George first mentioned it, a few weeks after moving in. 

George pulls on the beaded cord next to the staircase to bring the lightbulb hanging in the centre of the room to life. He blinks a few times to adjust to the scorch of the glow it emits, and strides forward to leave his clothes and towel in a pile next to the washing machine. For a reason unknown, the energy feels worse tonight; it prickles his skin with a phantom sense of heat, _anticipation_ , and it itches deeply at George’s subconscious, just shy of where he can’t reach. George looks around wearily, and when he finds nothing to put the blame on he decides that he doesn’t want to stay much longer. He hurries across the room and tugs the lightbulb cord again, flooding the room back into darkness, but before it can even reach George’s ankles he’s turning and running back upstairs. 

He feels stupid after doing so, but sue him, the feeling down there is _weird_.

George takes a steadying breath after walking back into the sanctity of the kitchen. He grabs the spoon he’d used to stir the sauce initially and dips it back in, swirling it around with no particular finesse. His mouth waters watching the double cream follow the motions of the spoon, cut through the soft ochre of the tomato with a graceful fluidity. His pasta is done, so George scoops a cup of the water into a glass and drains the rest away into the sink. He adds both the tagliatelle and the spared water to the sauce. Once he’s satisfied that he’s mixed it together well enough, _after_ he takes the opportunity for another taste test, George puts the spoon back into the rest next to the stove, and begins towards the living room.

He flops onto the couch and flicks the TV on. It’s some cheesy American sitcom, so George fishes his phone from his sweats and checks his notifications. He scrolls lazily. There’s some new texts in his uni group chat, a few snapchats from Sapnap, a new match on tinder, and _oh_ , an email from a professor with a subject that starts seductively with ‘ _deadline extens’_ -

A loud _bang_! coming from below rattles George to the core.

George grips the arm of the couch for dear life as a fleeting jolt of terror seizes at his body. Did that come from inside the house? No, it had to be from outside. It was thunder - that would make sense, George can still hear the rain hammering against the windows relentlessly, but since when was it storming? 

The next sound is of shattering glass. 

That _definitely_ came from the house.

Below the house, in fact. From the basement.

George swallows the rising lump in his throat, begs at his limbs to _move_ , get up, _do_ something, what _was_ that? They do, eventually - only after a terse few seconds. He fumbles around for wherever the remote has escaped to and turns the TV off, stands to his feet, and breaks into a haste.

First stop is the kitchen, where he twists the burner of the stove warming his pasta all the way down to zero. George ignores the way his heart begins to pick up its pace when he turns back around, the closer he ambles nervously along to the stairs. It starts to pound at his ribs in warning, _what is he doing? What are you doing, George? Stop! Go back!_

George’s hand is tremulous where it grips the bannister. He looks down to the dark pooling at the bottom of the stairs. _It’s probably nothing_ , he thinks as he begins the descent, _something probably just fell over. Maybe it was the plant pot I still haven’t bought a flower for_. George gets to the last step. He feels around for the lightbulb cord, and he pulls. 

Then, he screams.

Because there’s a _man_ , laying face down on the floor. 

George can’t even _begin_ to deny it; he lies with his back to where George stands, strapped with a sort of leather backpack, and his head is turned so that his nose is buried deep into George’s 404 jumper, which rests in a heap with the other clothes (and his _towel_ ) that he’d left a mere few minutes ago. He’s surrounded by shards of glass, some purple, some clear, some fading from the former to the latter, and a _shit_ ton of black rubble.

There is a guy. Laying on the floor of George’s basement. 

George’s mind races a mile a minute, standing frozen at the foot of the stairs. Is he being robbed? George's fists clench nervously at his sides. The thought sits heavily on his chest, melts into the skin, seethes alongside his blood to bring it to _boil_. Of course, this would happen the first weekend that he’s alone. 

He moves forward, slowly, peering down at the intruder with narrowed eyes. It’s so startlingly unclear as to how he’d gotten in - George hadn’t heard any sounds of a door opening, and all the windows were locked to keep out the rain. He'd been down here less than five minutes ago. Then, maybe - George dreads to think this could be true - maybe he’d been here before George had even gotten home. _Waiting_.

Oh, God. That doesn’t sound like a robbery. That sounds like -

But, _clearly_ , the guy isn’t in any fighting shape. Maybe he’d slipped on George’s wet towel and hit his head while he was looking for stuff to take. George flinches when a slight, sudden groan ripples out across the quiet, and the guy curls in on himself a little tighter. 

Maybe George could escape unscathed. Leave him down and lock the door, trap him until the police get here. He’s wearing black clothes, and they’re torn in some places - his arm, mostly, and the rip reveals freckled skin, stained with dried - is that _blood_?

How hard had he fallen? 

George starts to feel sick. An awful sense of foreboding begins to settle across his mind, shroud it in a quietly aggressive haze of red-hot alarm. George makes it to around two feet away when he brings himself to a halt. He crouches low to the floor, uneasy and laboured, the sound of crunching rubble the only noise to fill the nauseating silence. 

George reaches out a faintly shaking hand, barely ghosting it over the man’s shoulder, but he tears it back with fright when the guy’s breath catches in his throat and he coughs, weak and barely-there. That’s when George finally notices the unmistakable smell of smoke, radiating from the man’s softly shuddering body with a nasty vigour.

George’s throat aches hard with unease. Whoever this person is, he isn’t in a good way. He … George is starting to believe that, even though he’s a stranger laying bloodied in George’s basement, he isn’t a _threat_ , and even if he still is then he isn’t a _big_ one. It doesn’t even seem like he’d noticed that George is here.

George starts to think the worst. What if he _dies_ , here, in George’s home?

What would he tell the police?

_Sapnap_?

George feels himself start to panic. The air feels as though the last few seconds had witnessed it turn pressurised; it weighs a ton on top of his hand, when it attempts a return to the man’s shoulder, and George actually lets it drop. He allows his fingers to curl into the guy’s jacket and shake, light and edged with apprehension. 

“Hello?” George’s voice is small, tight. He shakes again. “Are you okay?”

Nothing. George’s heart beats harder with worry, this time. He grips onto the jacket and pulls, rolls the guy gently onto his back, as carefully as he can. The action prompts a distressed whine to escape the man’s lips, and George’s world turns upside down when he gets the first look at the face below him.

His brow is creased and his mouth has dropped open, allowing for a series of short, soft pants to take over the frail rise and fall of his chest. George’s eyes widen taking in a pair of unusually thick, sharp canine teeth, and as they roam further across the expanse of tiny cuts and bruises littering his skin, he notices more dried blood below his nose, at his hairline. 

George’s stomach ties itself into knots.

And he’s just about to brush away some of the clean blonde tendrils from the mess, get a better look at the injury that could be keeping him knocked out, when a pair of eyes open, and George’s upside down world splits clean in two.

There’s no iris. They’re a dangerous, unearthly whirlpool of black.

But then he blinks, and a few fluttering moments later, the black is replaced by the _brightest_ pair of green eyes that George has maybe ever seen.

Suddenly, the oxygen in the atmosphere feels a lot harder to breathe. George watches, paralysed with shock, as the lids of the man’s eyes drop lower and lower, and his gaze leaves George’s briefly to glance upwards. Then, he’s tilting his head, pressing the top of his forehead into George’s frozen palm, and falling back unconscious.

George’s heart stutters.

Whoever this is, passed out on the floor beneath him, isn’t - isn’t _human_. 

George is certain about that - _nobody_ of this Earth has colour-shifting black eyes. It throws out any theory that George might’ve had as to how he’d gotten in, or what he was _doing_ here. 

And the _trust_ in his action - in the faithful, tender way that he presses his superhuman head to George’s open hand - makes it a lot easier for George to _panic_. 

Blind, exorbitant hysteria takes the reins and commands a charge into action. George presses his touch firmer onto the guy’s skin (he’s hot, _burning_ to the touch) and he rakes his gaze down the length of his frame, searching for any more injury, mor - “oh, _shit_ , shit, _fuck_!”

George gags when he notices the pool of blood leaking from the man’s side.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” George’s nerves begin to fray. He grabs at either side of the guy’s jacket and tugs as hard as he can, but shit, he’s _heavy_ , and it takes George a good ten seconds before he gets the guy sitting up. It takes even longer for him to get them both standing, but as soon as he does he pulls the other man’s arm around his shoulders and holds onto it for dear life. “come on, come _on_ , we need to go upstairs, I can’t help you down here. Work with me. _Please_.”

George isn’t even sure that the man is listening to his babbling, if he can even _hear_ him. He leans his weight into George’s side and George wants to cry at the amount of blind confidence being put into his strength. They shuffle forward, pace by pace, until they find the bottom of the stairs and begin climbing them rigidly. Even completely hunched over, the guy has at least an extra three inches on George’s height. It’s difficult.

George guides their steps as best as he can, hand steadied to the small of the guy’s back, and they’re doing great until around halfway up. He must misstep, or move to a bad angle, because George recoils in shock when the blonde lets out a growl of pain and seizes up in George’s hold, sudden and forceful, and he clutches the bannister with a white-knuckled grip, squeezes it _so_ hard that the wood splits beneath his hand. 

“S _orry_ , I’m sorry, _shit_ , it’s - it’s okay.” George’s voice cracks. His hand is quaking where it strokes down the guy’s back. “It’s okay. I’m here. Just - just breathe. Easy, it’s okay. Easy.”

George can feel how hard the poor guy is breathing, pressed against his side - his chest is shuddering, wheezing roughly. George says a silent prayer. 

A few beats later, and the guy’s breathing evens back out. He tightens his arm around George’s neck. George pretends not to feel the heat that rises to his face, and they re-start on their task. 

By the five minute mark, George is just about as drenched in sweat as the other man, and his entire body is throbbing taut with the tension he uses to keep them both upright, but eventually, _thankfully_ , they make it to the top and turn into the living room. George pulls the blonde’s arm from his shoulders and settles him down onto the couch, in the same spot as George had been before his arrival, and once he’s _sure_ that he can still feel a pulse, after a trepidation-filled few seconds of holding two fingers to the man’s neck, George races upstairs.

He rushes in a frenzy around the bathroom, grabbing as many supplies as he can, and makes a stop afterwards at his bedroom. He gets back to the living room in record time.

George drops all of his things onto the coffee table, but takes the washcloth with him into the kitchen. Blood is pounding in his ears by the time he’s running it under the cold water tap, and the dread truly sets in. George has no idea how to care for a supernatural creature. What even is he? He _looks_ human enough. Maybe the healing process is the same, and George could just put a bandage over it and ki -

George breaks himself out of his thoughts. That is _not_ the right phrase to use. 

He looks down just in time to see the washcloth waterlog. George wrings it out until it doesn’t drip quite as often, and fills a spare mixing bowl with more water, which he takes back with him into the living room. He sets the bowl onto the coffee table, alongside the washcloth. 

George takes a moment to steel his resolve before he turns back around to face the guy on the couch. Once he does, George begins to leans down, willing the biting heat of disquietude resting at the apex of his chest to cool, and he starts to unbuckle the leather strap at the man’s chest. George pulls it off gently and reaches around to slide the backpack out, to let him press fully into the back of the couch. He does, sagging wholly into the cushions with a quiet sigh, and George releases an identical noise of relief. 

Next, he works on taking off the jacket, manoeuvring it carefully around the cut on his bicep, and the black muscle top he wears underneath consoles George’s anxieties tenfold. Apart from his arm, and the patch on his ribs, the rest of him looks relatively unscathed.

George twists around and gathers the washcloth off of the coffee table, balling it into his hand. He lifts it gently to the cut on the blonde’s arm and starts cleaning away the debris. An unimaginable amount of black soot stains the yellow fabric dark, to then reveal dozens of dried, tiny clumps of blood, and underneath that, a deep, gaping cut, still oozing fresh clots. George’s head feels light enough to find a home with the clouds. He looks away before he can pass out.

He holds the cloth to the wound and presses as lightly as the bleeding allows while he bends back around to the coffee table. George grabs an antiseptic-infused plaster, bought from the last time Sapnap had tried to cook dinner, and he places it lightly over the cut, taking care not to pull the cloth away too quick. Once it’s stuck firmly to the skin George wraps it up with a loose bandage. So far, the guy hadn’t made a sound. George feels a murmur of pride begin to swell; he must be doing a good job at keeping any bad pain to a minimum. Before he carries on, though, he spares a quick glance sideways to the blonde’s face, just to check for sure, and - 

and the sight he finds pushes hard on the brakes of George’s mind. They _screech_ to pull his thoughts to a sickening halt.

The guy’s head has lolled back onto the top of the couch, revealing a long, tanned column of throat, marred only by a jagged streak of blood.

George’s hands soar to either side of the man’s face. He cradles his jaw with an unsteady grip, pulls him back upwards, and horror rears its ugly head when George finds the corner of the guy’s mouth to be the source of the leak. 

“No, no, no, no, no,” George lets go hurriedly and looks back at his supplies. He doesn’t have _shit_ for internal bleeding, but the disordered traipse of his gaze - a frantic back and forth between the man and the coffee table - divulges that, after all, that won’t matter. He notices the blonde’s hand is clutched tellingly against his side, right where he was bleeding previously, and George peels it away with a soft tremble of urgency. He pushes up the muscle top, forcing away a storm of electric butterflies when his fingers brush against the sweat-slicked skin of the guy’s toned stomach, and - “ _no_.”

George’s eyes well with warm, useless tears. The wound looks like a puncture rather than a cut, and the flesh surrounding it has turned a deep shade of yellow. Or green. George isn’t sure. It’s messy, irregular in pattern, painful just to witness ...

... it’s _poison_.

George presses his hand to his mouth. Despair washes over his entire body, an all-consuming tsunami of sorrow that steals the air from his lungs and the balance from his legs, and he starts to back away. He can’t help. He doesn’t have anything to help that with, no way to remedy the pain, stop the toxin from spreading -

George stares hard at the pinch of pain at the guy’s eyebrow, the forlorn downwards tilt of his lips. The blonde curls dampened with sweat. The gentle rasp to his breath.

George cries.

He _cries_ , abrupt and harrowed, for the supernatural stranger being poisoned to death on his couch.

And he’s still backing away, shoulders shuddering with salty, hopeless whimpers, when his foot trips against the leather bag on the floor.

The backpack.

The _guy’s_ backpack.

With his _own stuff_ in.

George doesn’t have time to think. He falls to his knees and tips the backpack upside down with a mercilessness akin to a thirty eight degree fever. Its contents spill out across the floor - a half eaten loaf of bread, some sticks and rocks, a few vividly yellow apples, two stray lumps of coal, some small empty bottles, a compass shimmering with a faint blue glow, and - 

Bingo.

A full glass vial, labelled sloppily as ‘Regen.’

The liquid inside looks comparable to pure silk, upon further inspection. It doesn’t slosh, it _swirls_ , and glimmers bright with an otherworldly shine, like it was bottled from the sky itself. George has no idea if it’ll do anything helpful, but a newborn bolt of hope siezes at his nerves and gathers them into a rumbling embrace of comfort, willing them to calm down, easy, steady. It’s _something_.

George scrambles to his feet and rushes forward, twisting the cork jamming the neck of the vial with a grip weakened by pure yearning, and once it comes loose he pours some out into his palm. He holds his breath and braces when he splays it out across the puncture wound, soothing the glossy liquid into the heated skin with a clumsy spread of his fingers. He takes his hand off when most of it is absorbed, _breathe, George_ , and then he moves his attention upwards.

He takes hold of the guy’s chin, as tenderly as George is humanly capable of, and pulls until his mouth is open wider. George raises the vial to his lips, feigns off a fleeting stab of uncertainty, and tips it until the rest of the lustrous fluid is downed. 

And that’s it.

George pulls the vial back once it’s empty. Adrenaline still pumps through his system, rushing blood to his head with a deafening roar, squeezing around his brain until George has to _remember_ to blink, and to remind his heart to beat by itself, but that’s it.

That’s everything he should do. The wounds have been looked after.

George steps back. 

He settles the vial down onto the coffee table, bends to the floor stiffly to gather the rest of the guy’s things back into his bag, and that’s _it_ , but it’s _not_. George does take selfish, writhing solace in watching the slow up and down of the guy’s chest, the fact that he’s still _alive_ , but that isn’t everything he can do.

So, he finds where he’d dropped the washcloth, and rinses it in the mixing bowl of fresh water. He pulls it out when the water turns murky, squeezes out the excess, and carries on.

He mops at the blood caked along his hairline, below his nose, at the side of his lip and down his throat. He wipes away the rest of the dirt and soot from his face and, even though it had just been treated with what could possibly be the best medicine around, George adds an extra antiseptic plaster on top of the puncture wound. It couldn’t hurt. He finishes by draping the spare blanket brought down from his bedroom out across the blonde’s lap.

The dirt, the soot, the blood, it could all be a possible infectant. And if he got too cold while he was asleep then the healing could slow; it could all make the guy _sick_ again, paranormal or not. George tells himself that he can’t let that happen after his efforts so far. Wasted effort is wasted time, and ... time is of the essence, after all. 

A sudden yawn clawing its way from George’s mouth causes George to realise that the last ten minutes had been uneventful enough for his heart rate to stoop to almost resting levels. The previously unyielding agitation dissipates from his muscles, slow but sure, and George uses the newfound calm to take a look down to his t-shirt. He grimaces when he finds it soiled with blood and muck. Taking one last look-over of the blonde guy, now snoring peacefully into the arm of the couch, George decides that he’s stable enough to go upstairs and change.

Trudging up the stairs feels like an act of fiction. George’s head buzzes quietly with a blank slate of static, empty yet busy, and walking into his room to be faced firstly by the very-real work still laying unassumingly on his desk feels like a sick joke. He changes into a dark blue long-sleeve and leaves the dirty shirt crumpled on the floor. George couldn’t handle a trip to the basement, right now, and it appears as if looking at his bed is apparently another thing on that list, too.

George shifts his weight from foot to foot as he tries to think of the best way to handle the present nightfall. Usually, his body sang for the cosy, intimate hold of his own familiar place of rest, but right now George can’t think of anything _worse_ than sleeping up here. His thoughts are scrambled with images of dirty blonde waves, feelings of preternatural, blazing trust against an arctic earthly palm, and fresh fears of permanent fatality splattering red across a tanned expanse. If he needed more help, and George was up here, out of earshot -

George gathers his pillow and duvet up into his arms, and marches back down the stairs. Time is of the essence. 

The guy is exactly how George left him, much to George’s relief. George settles in the arm chair by the TV and pulls his legs up to his chest, wrapping himself up in his duvet, and resting his head onto his pillow. He watches the blonde across the room squirm around under the blanket for a good minute and a half before he finally sinks into stillness, and George’s eyelids follow suit. 

If, on the off chance, that George wakes up alone tomorrow, with an unblemished home and no sign of an occult six foot blonde, and this was all a dream? 

  
Then it’s a dream that he can’t _wait_ to Google the meaning of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiii again, lordleo here
> 
> chapter 1!!!!! ahhhh!!!!!
> 
> i promise the tone is going to WAY lighten up by chapter 2 omg reading this back i was like jesus........leo.......you did this for what?????? but don't worry it's all in the name of plot
> 
> also, something i forgot to mention in the opening end notes - guys, this fic is rated M only for now. it will eventually be changed to E because i do plan on adding NSFW content. i'll be putting a warning at the beginning of the chapter when it does crop up, but i just thought i'd make it known now with LOTS of advance warning (this is a slow burn after all)
> 
> as always comments are sooo appreciated, feedback helps us writers grow so much!!! good or bad, absolutely anything <3
> 
> thank you for reading this far, see you at chapter 2!!!! ilyyyy!!!
> 
> \- Lord Leo


	3. something about the sunshine - act ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/143YJMBPAWhZSi7CbxMJ6T?si=NrmWCxijSWal7P4wi_NPKg  
> \- fic playlist ♡ 
> 
> @707L0RDLE0  
> \- author's twitter ♡

George has always been a deep sleeper. 

Nothing is ever usually enough to rouse him, half an hour or so after drifting off. Each of the four elements of planet Earth itself could declare a punishing vendetta against George’s body — pushing to anger rolling eruptions of light, pulling to nurse colourful explosions of sound, creating, destroying, reassembling until a storming coalition of terrene physicality is born anew; a reignited battle of man versus nature, timeworn and high-flown, and yet it _still_ wouldn’t be enough to lessen the need for three separate alarms the next morning. Or so it feels like.

So, when George starts to come around at ten thirty on Saturday morning, slow and languid and with a burning crick in the side of his neck, nothing feels out of the ordinary. He’s only just beginning to stretch out his legs, a molten feeling of relief oozing into the tips of his toes, when a rough chafe of second-hand fabric against the exposed skin at his back provokes a quiet wonder, a murmur of a question … what exactly is he _doing_ , waking up in the living room armchair, instead of his bed?

George opens his eyes. 

Disjointed pieces of recollection begin to materialise, foggy where they hang over his sleep-fuzzy brain like a cloud heavy with grey drips of precipitation. George inhales a sharp breath of air and rushes to move to his feet, peels of morning light draping his shadow out flustered across olive-coloured rug. He’s tangled in his duvet, so it takes a second, but once he’s standing, he — 

he wants to sit back down. 

A singular glance sideways gives way to a rainfall of memories. It’s a flood reminiscent of the tracks of salt that lay dried on George’s cheeks, and it beats senselessly against whatever was left of his early morning peace. Pouring blood and waves of blonde trickle down George’s neck, their weight like a pair of tightening hands, and they’re followed by a torrent of green-yellow poison, a storm of bottled aether. They stream beside one another into a maelstrom of otherworldly black sclera, hypnotising and dangerous, found solely at the pinnacle of George’s steadily thumping heart, and George feels like he wants to throw up. 

The spare blanket is strewn across the couch, tucked into the cushions carefully so that the stain of crimson George knows lies underneath is hidden. The whole scene is still crumpled, carrying whispered tales of a missing face shrouded with sleep, and ultimately, it’s bare.

Empty.

Which, in all senses of the word, should be _good_. 

It has to mean that whatever George managed to do last night had worked. The superhuman that George tried his best to save had clearly been in a well-enough state to leave come waking up, more so to try to cover his tracks with the blanket he slept with. Basic survival, and blaringly obvious that none of what happened had been a dream, so … so this is an ending of the happier variety, surely. 

It _is_ , unquestionably, and yet somehow George can’t help but feel deflated. The blonde’s absence proves the fact that now, he’ll never really know what happened — who exactly he’d saved, _cried_ for, and it leaves a bad taste on his tongue. It’s selfish (scarily so, in fact) but he can’t find it in himself to feel a true sense of guilt. Who would feel guilty for wanting to know more after a genuine brush with the supernatural? More than anything, George wants to feel _sad_ , to mourn for the unexpected loss of closure, but … how can he lose something that was never really promised in the first place?

George runs a hand through his hair, drags it half-heartedly down the side of his face. Sleeping had done nothing but amplify the torment that the night previous had left him with, twisting it and re-modelling until it blooms with the dawn of the new day as a remorseless flow of ache. Whether it leans more towards physical or emotional, though, George has yet to decide.

Letting loose a small sigh, George gathers his pillow and the two blankets into his arms and heads upstairs. He dumps them onto the floor of the landing and turns to make his way into the bathroom, where he brushes his teeth and begins to freshen up. 

He starts with some face wash, and the lurking familiarity of the act of massaging it into his skin sees a sense of restlessness truly start to settle into his bones. It’s a feeling with effects similar to the sting at the inner corners of his eyes, where the cleanser begins to seep by accident, and its softly twinging intensity forces George to consider the question that burns an unyielding amount of frustration into the side of his brain; _how_ is he going to forget? Brush this under the rug? 

Last night, a life had quite literally been at his mercy — a life belonging to a _paranormal being_ , no less, and all that said being had done was push his head into George’s hands and trust him, blindly and recklessly, to lap at his wounds. Everything George knows to be earthside reality is threatened by his presence. His mere _existence_ punches cavernous holes into George’s vulnerable understanding of human experience. 

And he’s gone.

George washes the cleanser off with some warm water, pulls the hand towel free from hanging on the rung to his right. He looks up at his reflection in the mirror in the midst of patting his face dry, and he looks the same, _exactly_ the same as any other day would find him, right down to the stray lock of hair hanging loose across his brow, but it’s upon looking into his own eyes that he finds something fresh. A reeling type of perfect storm, burning bright through the dark of his iris. A model dichotomy between the roaring blue of despair, and the baseless red of _wonder_. 

Forgetting wouldn’t come easily.

George pushes off of the sink with a huff of annoyance. He finds his tub of moisturiser, scoops some out and rubs it in, and then he makes an exit from the bathroom. Bending over to pick out the blanket slightly soiled with residual blood from the pile on the floor, George throws it over his shoulder, the action slightly harsher than it probably needs to be, and he steps back downstairs. 

The kitchen greets him with more hospitable warmth. Thick rays of the dependable Floridian sun cascade in through the windows, a welcome change from the onslaught of rain that characterised the nighttime freshly passed, and George follows its gaze until his own rests on the saucepan sitting on the stove, and _oh_ , what a sight it is to behold.

A throb of grief stabs at George’s soul. He grabs the handle of the pan and holds it steady as he scrapes the wasted pasta out into the bin, frown brimming with an embarrassingly mournful disposition, and once it’s empty he fills it with some hot, soapy water. He watches it flow until the liquid begins to bleed a light tint of orange. Leaving it in the sink to soak, George decides to wash it with the rest of his pots and pans after breakfast, and then he turns a weary pace towards the basement.

George swallows a thick bundle of emotion when he gets to the stairs. The violent crack of the bannister had left behind a prickling shower of wooden splinters that blanket the steps midway up. George takes a slow, deep breath and, as he starts to make his way down, he turns a desperately blind eye to sudden pulses of memory describing phantom feelings of a broad, tanned arm around his neck, a shuddering breath by his ear laced with a lifetime of hurt. George’s hand finds its way to the blanket over his shoulder. He clutches it tight.

Reaching the bottom, he pulls on the lightbulb cord and engulfs the room with light. A halfway-dry pool of ruddy fluid splays across the floor, a small two meters from the heap of clothes left by the washing machine the night before, and embracing them both is the leftover black rubble and the faded shards of glass. George leaves the dirty blanket with the rest of his washing. There’s no energy to the air, now.

George makes his way back upstairs to the kitchen and starts readying some supplies. He fills a measuring jug with some cool water, tucking a fresh washcloth and a bottle of Lysol under his arm, and he takes them through with him into the living room. The water in the jug sloshes precariously close to the edge so George watches his footing on the way, setting it down gently onto the coffee table as soon as he can, and it's only then that George looks up, manoeuvring the bottle out from under his arm and into his hand, to make a start on the blood smearing the floor. 

Only, his attention is stolen from the blood as soon as his gaze rakes over the window at the head of the room, because standing outside, in the middle of the road, is George’s superhuman.

George drops the Lysol.

The blonde is walking around in circles, looking up to a compass he holds towards the sky. George moves forwards until his fingertips touch the glass, eyes widening at the same time a sickly gush of excitement and hope and relief sings a deafening symphony from inside the cage of his ribs, and the smile George tries to fight off next is one of complete and utter _disbelief_.

It’s stupid, the feeling is so _strange,_ but — 

George tears himself from the window and practically races to the hallway. He opens the front door and the sun beats down gloriously onto the ground, shrouds the blonde in the street with a cloak of godlike radiance that ripples out from strong, freckled shoulders, sways to the same breeze that tousles a glowing halo of gold. George’s breath hitches.

It sinks in. 

He’s still here.

George opens his mouth to shout, but any sound he tries to make dies in his throat with the sudden squeal of tires on tarmac. George looks to his left and his stomach drops as he watches a car round the corner at the top of his street. It looks, from rough estimation, around ten seconds away from sending the blonde — who still has his back turned hopelessly to the oncoming vehicle as he fiddles with his compass — to a second early grave.

So George runs.

He lets go of his grip on the front door, breaks into a sprint. The water bowl on the porch nearly trips him up on his way and Sapnap’s ‘no walking on the lawn’ rule is thrown clean out of the window ‘cause _fuck_ , that driver must be doing forty at least and the blonde still has his back turned, looks as if he still hasn’t even clocked it coming, oh God, oh _God_ — 

But, somehow, George’s feet have barely made contact with the road before he finds himself caught, stumbling backwards, and a dizzying blur of black clothes and dirty waves introduces his back to the lawn. 

George gasps with shock, the air knocked clean from his lungs, and he only just manages to get a fleeting glimpse of the speeding car going past some lengthy seconds later, over the top of a tightly bandaged bicep. 

George pulls his gaze upwards. An angular jaw peppered with stubble intersects a column of tanned neck as the blonde watches the car turn the corner, eyes narrowed, no sound of a rattle to his chest where it rises and falls without so much of an _ounce_ of labour, and — 

and George hadn’t noticed the smiley face tattoo underneath his ear last night.

George’s face begins to burn with an unexplainable kind of heat. Then, all too soon, the blonde turns his head, and he and George make eye contact for the second time, and George _stares_ , utterly entranced as he watches the blonde lean in and take a small, gentle sniff to the air at George’s throat. When he pulls back his face splits into a broad smile, and it's _wonderful_ , unforgiving and dazzling enough to find kinship with the stars themselves, solid canines bared sharp, glistening like a wordless threat against the caress of the pale morning sunlight. 

“It’s you!” His voice is everything that George hadn’t been prepared to expect. It’s smooth, full-toned and electrifying, lilted slightly in a way that makes a sing-song pool of nerves start to stir at the bottom of George’s stomach. His face must give that away, because when he doesn’t respond, the blonde carries on talking, expression melting with apology. His fingers come to rest underneath George’s jaw, turning his head from side to side. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I hurt you anywhere? I didn’t expect you to, um, I’d heard the car coming from back when it was two blocks over, I didn’t think you would — I knew _I_ could move in time but when you showed up I kinda panicked, what the hell were you _thinking_? You could’ve gotten yourself killed, that car was going way too fast for you to —”

He stops himself mid sentence when George splutters. 

“Hold on,” George glares. “excuse me? What was _I_ thinking? What were _you_ thinking? You nearly bled to death on my couch last night, how was I supposed to guess that you’re well enough to dodge a car going forty miles an hour? That you had your _back_ turned to?” The blonde poises his mouth to answer, but George isn’t finished. The question erupts from his throat before he can actually process its weight. “Who _are_ you?”

And the weight, George finds, is enough to crush any life in the blonde’s response. George has never bore witness to a face able to portray so many expressions before in his _life_ , from the flicker of surprise in the raise of his brow to the drag of frustration in the purse of his lips. George would be happy to sit and learn them all for the entire rest of the day, undoubtedly — but only because doing so would very clearly be advantageous for himself. However unlikely, an occasion could definitely present and exist to prove the chance that helping the man above him is a poor choice, which George doesn’t like the thought of. As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and at present? 

George has no idea who this guy could end up to be. 

Seconds continue to pass. The time observing the cat and mouse chase between the blonde and his words must run exactly parallel to the time watching George’s back, as the longer the silence drags on, the stronger a damp of dewy green moisture begins to seep through the fabric of George's shirt; it’s a startling reminder of where this exchange is taking place. So, George chooses that today, benevolence is the way forward. 

He puts the blonde out of his misery by reaching up a hand between their chests, pushing lightly on the other man’s shoulder, and George does his best to ignore the charged rumbles of high-strung tensity radiating from the meeting point of skin to fabric. He bites back a frown when he notices a small patch of fresh crimson on a previously unblemished spot of bandage tied at the blonde’s bicep. George juts his chin back towards the house. “Come on, let’s talk inside instead. You’re bleeding again.”

“I am? Oh.” The blonde glances down to his arm, prods at his bandage with a careful touch as he rocks back onto his hunches. George finds with a flicker of unease that he misses the weight of his fingers around his jaw. “Inside? Really?”

“Yeah, really.” George sits up at the same time the blonde stands, offering his hand, and the rough slide of George’s bare palm against the weathered leather of the fingerless glove he wears sets George’s nerves alight. Then, perhaps even more daunting, when he gets to his feet the blonde doesn’t drop his hold, choosing instead to watch George intently, squeeze around his fingers as if to say _okay, so we’re going inside, what’s taking so long_? and, George could definitely be reading into it — could be so alarmingly distressed at the whole situation that he’s putting words into the blonde’s mouth when he hasn’t even opened it, to maybe ease some of his own discomfort with the fact that for a reason unknown, he isn’t even necessarily _uncomfortable_ — and so, instead of just blindly panicking, George swallows his pride. He takes the lead back towards the house, and the blonde follows along easily. 

They reach the porch and pass through the front door, and when George pushes it shut behind them he spares a careful glance to the blonde’s face. His eyes are a balefire of closely guarded curiosity, taking in George’s shabby paint job and Sapnap’s poor attempt at putting their picture frames up straight, and the sight stirs an agitated twinge of tenderness at the base of George’s heart. The blonde sticks out sorely against the domestic backdrop. Standing there atop the cherry hardwood floor in dirty leather combats, grimy black clothes a vivid contrast to the clean tan of the walls, he looks … far from home, wherever that could be. The subtle sag to his shoulders is telling that it might’ve been a hard journey.

George looks away after that thought, swallowing a tight lump of something quite akin to sorrow. He tugs on the blonde's hand and guides him further into the living room.

The blonde winces as soon as the sofa comes into view. “I’m sorry about your couch.”

“Don’t be,” George waves it off. He slips his hand from the warmth of the leather it rested in, staving off an indignant pang of regret, and he motions for the blonde to sit. When he does, George busies himself with sorting through the rest of the plasters and bandages left over from last night. “So, um, do you want me to take a look at your arm? I have a change of bandages if you want it.”

“Oh, no, that’s fine, thank you.” The blonde says. George glances back to meet his gaze. “You’ve already done so much. I don’t wanna be any trouble.”

Against his better judgement, George offers a light-hearted smile. “You passed the point of being any trouble when you opened your eyes and the whites were black.”

Blondie’s mouth drops open. George raises a smug eyebrow, about to turn back to the bandages in his hand, but then the incredulous expression the blonde wears melts into one of amusement, carrying a smile in return of George’s own with enough intensity to all but shatter the delicate orbit of George’s emotions. “You haven’t met a demon before, huh? You must be a good boy.”

George short-circuits. 

“I’m not dignifying you with a response.” He scowls as the blonde’s smile dissolves into a breath-stealing grin, “That’s what you are? A demon?”

The blonde — the _demon_ — nods. “Are you scared?”

George takes a second to think. A few moments pass before he affirms his disagreement. “No. If there was any reason for me to be scared of you then I’d be dead by now, wouldn’t I?”

The demon tilts his head to the side, eyes twinkling with mirth. “You’re smart.”

“Thank you.” George averts his gaze, then, before his face can start to warm. He fumbles to tear a new bandage from its packaging. “Look, I know you didn’t ask for my help. I probably foiled your big exit plan before, and I know that I don’t know a lot about, um … demons, but whatever I can do, I will. I’m starting breakfast now if you want a plate and there’s a shower upstairs you can use in the meantime. Then maybe you can let me take a look at your arm, and you can tell me more about how you ended up here. I’ll listen. And then I promise, I won’t stop you from leaving for real.”

George knows. He’s offering a lot, _asking_ a lot, especially to a creature supposedly descended from hell itself — he _knows_. But on a level deep in the depths of his spirit, George finds himself sure that the blonde sitting on the couch behind him wouldn’t take advantage of that. And if he would, well ... George feels okay with having to reap the consequences.

He clutches the fresh bandage between his fingers and turns around slowly, heartbeat thunderous in its spot beneath his chest. The demon regards him with a heavy gaze, calculating and quizzical, scrutinizing almost every inch of George’s body before it pierces deep into his chest to peer down at his soul while it lays out bare. He stands, unhurried and vaguely domineering, but when he speaks there’s no intimidation to his tone. It’s featherlight, soothing, as if all too aware of the light tremor to George’s hands.

“What makes it so easy for you to trust me?” He asks.

George crushes the waiver to his voice before he replies. “There’s a difference between trust and faith. What I’m doing now is putting my faith in you, and if you prove to me that that’s the right thing to do, then you’ll have my trust.”

That earns an interested smile. “Faith is unheard of where I come from. We either trust or we don’t, because we don’t usually have any stakes low enough to afford to do anything else. What’s your name?”

George repays it. “Well then, lesson number one of turning faith into trust? On low stake human terms? Actions speak louder than words. Tell me yours first.”

The demon chuckles, low and throaty. It sends jolts of unexpected potential down George’s spine. “I’m Dream. Nice to meet you.”

“Dream.” George repeats, the name settling on his tongue like the delicious weight of sleep after a long summers’ day. It sounds right for him, more than anything else, but George decides that it’s only fitting in the way that a circle fits into a square — almost there, so _close_ , but regardlessly short of something just enough to encompass all of his true sanctity. “It’s nice to meet you too. I’m George.”

Dream grins. “Cute name.”

George scoffs, breaking their eye contact entirely to move to the path of the door instead. He ignores the jump of his heart. “My parents chose it, not me. Come on, I’ll show you where the bathroom is. You’re stinking up my living room.”

That’s when George gets the first real preview of Dream’s laughter. It rings out light across the chords of sunlight streaming into the living room, dances across them breezily with notes of delight, tiny hints of an underlying wheeze, and if George’s heart had jumped before then it _leaps_ now. Dream shakes his head. “You’re so dumb.”

George rolls his eyes, a sudden, incomprehensible dryness to his throat, and heads out into the hall. Dream leaves his leather rucksack at the foot of the stairs before they make their way up, and George chooses not to pay any attention to the agonizingly agreeable heat at his back where Dream follows behind him at a pace even closer than Sapnap after two or three drinks. Which, for arguments’ sake, is _close_. 

They get to the landing and George pushes the door open to the bathroom. “When you get in the shower you have to press the knob in and turn it to the left for the water to come out hot. How do you like your eggs?”

“Um, however you wanna make them, I guess.”

George sighs. “Okay. There should be a clean towel already hanging but if there isn’t then check the cupboard under the sink. Spare toothbrush is green and in the pot on the windowsill, help yourself to toiletries. I’ll leave a spare change of clothes for you in my room, it’s that one there. I’ll leave my door open.”

Dream’s eyes flicker up, down. He tilts his head to the side again, but this time George feels self-consciously perceived. It’s a strange type of warmth. “You think your clothes are gonna fit?”

George’s eyes widen. He crosses his arms loosely across his chest. “I didn’t say they’d be mine. Go, before I purposely burn your toast.” 

“Okay, okay, sorry for asking. I’m gone.” Dream holds his hands up in surrender with a teasing bare of his teeth. His arm brushes George’s shoulder gently before he disappears into the bathroom, and the door clicks shut behind him.

George lets out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

What has he gotten himself _into_ , here?

He only starts to head into Sapnap’s room after the sound of running water breaks him out of his daze. The severity of the situation last night had led George _completely_ astray as regards to his perception of who Dream could end up to be, he realises; he was anticipating serious, two dimensional, expressive only through stone-cold deprecation of both himself _and_ George. George only had half a mind to dismiss the genuine possibility of having to hear a droning, mile long speech upon Dream waking up alive, _you shouldn’t have saved me. I’m a monster, a sick, masochistic lion, and you’re just a stupid lamb_. George opens up Sapnap’s closet. 

There’s a wide variety of streetwear, he finds, so picking out the longest pair of joggers — grey with a vivid Florida Gators logo down the side, from the first game he and George went to as Orlando residents — is easy. He finds the biggest t-shirt next, which ends up being white, and he hopes for the best. Sapnap is taller than George, a little more filled out too, so with any luck these’ll fit at least a _little_ looser on Dream’s frame.

George walks into his room. He might have even guessed Dream to be devoid of any traces of humanity, too. Communicating solely by animalistic snarls and grunts, feral and primal, a slave to the very instincts that make him an expert at putting his predatorial teeth to good use. The thought wracks a shiver across George’s shoulders. He folds the clothes up neat and places them down on the foot of his bed, alongside the freshly opened bandage.

Maybe, George had also thought while he was drifting off last night — maybe the moment Dream woke up, he might’ve just taken George’s life there and then, unflinching in his devotion to the old Gods of apathy. No debt to repay if the collector is dead, after all. George smooths out a soft wrinkle in the fold of the sweats. No, clearly, Dream doesn’t work that way. 

He doesn’t work in any of the ways that George had been prepared to handle.

Dream is all smiles. He’s surprisingly physical without any ill intent and he communicates in English just fine. It’s not to be said that Dream still can’t end up being all of those things — stone cold, animalistic, apathetic — but something in his demeanour is telling that it’s more improbable than it is likely. It could be the gentle touch that he pressed to George’s jaw to reassure himself that George wasn't hurt, but it might also owe to the softly attentive glimmer in his eye that George had caught when he’d played along with George’s silly little philosophy lesson. Maybe it’s even the fact that he’s still _here_ , accepting food and hospitality and first aid from a total _stranger_ , when said stranger could possibly be a whole reality away from starting to take a shot at what he’d been through. 

George trails his hand back to his side. The burning wonder inside his heart has cooled, now, and he leaves his bedroom with a fresh, unbreakable resolve to move past mindless guessing, to _understand_ , unconditionally and irrevocably. Dream would clean himself up, George would feed him, and they would _talk_ , and that’s an idea that brings a giddy, childish heat to the hilts of George’s cheekbones. The hall is absent of any noise of water hitting tile when he gets to the stairs, so he jogs the rest of the way down and the intent is to waste no more time in getting started on breakfast, but without any much more warning, there’s a knock at the front door.

George tenses. He isn’t expecting any deliveries — any company at _all_ , for that matter — but Dream is all the way upstairs. It should be fine. George walks forward until he has a hand on the door’s rusty bronze handle, and with a short, nerve-steeling exhale, he pushes it down and pulls until it reveals his visitor. 

His — 

His _tall_ visitor. 

He must have an extra three inches on Dream easily, who already has an extra five on George. George has to all but crane his neck to even get a look at his face. He can’t be any older than seventeen, judging by the boyish flush spreading from the tip of his nose up to his temples, but the contrasting red and green of his gaze where it scrutinizes George’s face is _wildly_ intimidating nonetheless. His hair is fluffy, half snowy white and half purple-tinted black, and upon closer inspection — his skin appears to be shaded the same colours. 

“Uh,” George feels his heartbeat begin to pick up in pace. The guy’s ears are long, pointy where they stick out at an almost perfect one eighty degree angle from his head. “hi. Can I help you?”

“Hi!” The teen says with an awkward, friendly smile. “Yeah, uh, I think you can, actually. I’m looking for my friend, I think he might be somewhere close to here. Do you mind if I come in?”

George freezes. The only one thing he knows about Dream is that something _awful_ happened to him yesterday, something that very nearly claimed his life — what if this guy is coming to finish the job?

The fluffy-haired teen attempts to move around George through the door frame. George steps back in front of him as a frantic sort of energy starts to clutch at his nerves. It feels odd, unfamiliar and almost material, and it tunnels his vision into one blind objective: _protect_.

George forces a tight smile. “I don’t think that’s necessary. There’s nobody here but me. What does your friend look like? I can help you look around outside, if you want.”

“He’s blonde, around six three. Green eyes.” The teen hums. He cocks his head to the side. “He would’ve been wearing black.”

“Really?” George shakes his head, shrugs for effect. “There’s quite a few guys in Florida that fit that bill. Anything more specific?”

“Uh-huh.” The teen looks away to a spot somewhere in the background, sigh disheartened. He points. “He has a backpack identical to that one. By your stairs.”

Dread drops like a dead weight inside of George’s stomach. 

“Why are you lying to me?” The teen’s voice has lost all notes of pleasantry. 

It’s a kick to the teeth. George’s temper flares. “I’m not. There isn’t anybody else here.” 

The teen shakes his head, laughing under his breath, and he strides forward into the house until George stumbles back. The question he asks next drips with venom. “Whose behalf are you keeping him on? Where do your loyalties lie, _human_?”

“With _him_.” George bites out, and as if to demonstrate his complete and utter sincerity, he lifts his chin and looks the teen in the eyes. 

That proves to be the wrong decision. 

George blanches as soon as the teen’s eyes narrow in return and his jaw starts to unhinge. A sudden noise rises from the quiet, then, perching on the tips of every fibre of George’s being, deafening and white-hot, and George clutches his hands over his ears reflexively when it reaches past the point of being an audible sound; from then on it’s a positive electrode of pure torture, attracting every electron in his body to a single point of burning agony. George is only distantly aware that he’s screaming because of the vibration it makes in his throat. He can’t hear a thing. His senses are painfully full to the brim, and George’s knees are just about to buckle, send him crashing to the floor — but that doesn’t happen.

Instead, a familiar pair of arms wrap themselves tight around George’s body. A warm, calloused hand cradles his head close to a damp chest, and another curls around his back in an almost protective manner.

“ — anboo! Ranboo! Stop! He’s with _me_! He’s on our side!”

Slowly, surely, the noise sinks away. George’s chest heaves. 

“George,” comes a quiet voice, “George. Can you hear me? Ranboo, we agreed that you’d start _talking_ before —”

“I did talk!” another whisper-shouts. “He lied to me!”

“‘He was _defending_ me. Can’t you smell it?”

“Smell _what_?”

“What do you _me_ — no, actually, _no_. Just wake him up. Wake him _up_.”

A cool palm is pressed to George’s forehead. Its heat blooms and spreads wildly through George’s veins, comforting and icy, and a short while after that, George’s eyes flicker open. The sheepish looking face of the teenager, Ranboo, is the first thing to appear. 

“Sorry about that, little buddy.” He says with a small, apologetic smile. George’s mood sours even further. “I thought you might’ve been on the wrong side of the war.”

“The war?” George croaks. The hand around his back flexes against his t-shirt, fists it light before smoothing it back out. A billowing spread of heat has already flurried up the sides of George’s neck by the time he realises who the hand belongs to. He turns his gaze backwards and Dream refuses to make eye contact. The demon stares at Ranboo with a discontented, uneasy bearing, and George leans further into his chest. “Dream. What war?”

“You haven’t told him?” Ranboo asks, eyebrows lifted with incredulity. “How did you explain the way you ended up here then? Dream, that’s cruel.”

“I haven’t explained anything yet.” Dream growls. “I was going to keep him out of it.”

“You were what?” George’s heart falters. The upset glower to his words is involuntary. “I told you I wanted to help. You were just going to lie to me?”

Ranboo snorts. “You two are made for each other.”

“I wasn’t going to lie.” Dream huffs. “I just wasn’t going to tell you the whole story.” 

“You do realise that’s just lying by omission?”

Dream’s frustrated exhale is melded with a poorly suppressed chuckle. “Hey, remember earlier when I said you were smart, George? I meant that in a derogatory way.”

“ _Another_ lie. Just shut up already.” George tries to squirm his way out of Dream’s grasp. It’s futile; the demon only tightens his hold. His hands grip around George’s middle, a heavy, grounding weight, and George _hates_ how okay he is with it. He sends a sulky, warning glare over his shoulder. “Let me go.”

Dream hums. “Stop being a brat and I’ll think about it.” 

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Ranboo clears his throat. “Okay, so, um, guys? This is cool and all, but I came here for a reason. It’s Karl. He found the book.”

Dream stills against George’s back. Not being able to see his face is irrelevant, because George is just about positive that he can almost feel the hopeful crashes of anticipation rolling from his expression. “He did? What language is it in?” 

Ranboo’s tone softens. “It’s — that’s not the good news.”

Dream curses under his breath. He lets go of his hold on George’s midriff and George turns around just in time to see the blonde bend to the floor, one hand gripping the towel slung low around his hips while the other rummages through his backpack. He produces a dirty slip of paper that looks like it might’ve been a page torn from a book, and burned into it are around twenty-something black symbols. George’s throat closes over when the demon stands up straight.

Now that he’s clean, George can see just about every freckle littering the tan of Dream’s skin. His hair is already starting to dry into soft, loose waves, framing a perfectly balanced ratio of tired, dark circles to sharp green iris. There’s a bruise blooming purple across the bridge of his nose, highlighting the start of a papery white scar spanning the length of Dream’s lips, chin, right down to the underside of his jaw. George wrings his palm out across his pyjama bottoms. He refuses to look any lower.

“Was it the same as this?” Dream returns to George’s side and holds the slip out for Ranboo to inspect. The teen takes it and studies the strange markings for a minute or two before he bites his lip.

“I think so.” He utters. “Standard Galactic is what Bad thinks it’s called. It hasn’t been used in decades, it died out with the last of the witches and evokers. Where did you see this?”

“Wilbur and I went looking for the blaze before the attack.” Dream answers. “I wanted a reading. This was all we got. And a blaze rod, but I put that inside my ender chest before the cabin was found. Neither that or the note was explained. They fucking speak in tongues.”

George shifts his weight from foot to foot. Despite the obvious verbal communication, an entire unspoken conversation is taking place between the two supernatural beings in George’s hallway, right now — the concentrated pull of Dream’s brow and the apprehensive tick to Ranboo’s jaw says it all. 

“Dream,” George interrupts. “Why don’t you go and get dressed? Ranboo and I will get started on breakfast. You can catch up while you’re both eating.”

Dream and Ranboo look equally as surprised as the other. 

“Are you sure?” Ranboo asks. The question is aired with caution.

George raises an eyebrow. He doesn’t quite wave a white flag, but with any luck, the smile he offers the teen will do the trick anyway. “Why wouldn’t I be? You might’ve tried to kill me but I’m not about to starve a child. Come on, I’ll teach you how to fry an egg.”

“Really? For real?” Ranboo all but bounces to George’s side. He starts rambling about the fact that eating eggs are banned back in his home dimension, which George _does_ eventually want to question, but instead he finds himself catching on to Dream’s unrelentingly acute stare. George nods to the stairs, the corners of his mouth tilting upwards when he notices a light flush across the demon’s cheeks, and Dream returns it with an easy, settled smile of his own. They don’t break eye contact until Dream grabs hold of the bannister and George turns towards the kitchen. 

When George looks back over to Ranboo, the teen’s smile is strangely pained. He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Nice, um, nice friendship you two have there! Has he been like that with you the whole time?”

“I … I guess so?” George answers. He walks the teen into the kitchen and grabs the opened packet of bacon from the fridge, and three eggs from the egg-house on the worktop. “Why? Is he different from this usually?”

George puts the bacon into his airfryer and turns it up to max, sets the alarm for seven minutes. He heats up some oil in his biggest frying pan and once it simmers, he turns the burner down to its lowest value, demonstrating cracking one of the eggs before he offers the other two to Ranboo. The teen is overjoyed, judging by the focused poke of his tongue at the corner of his mouth, and by the time he responds to George’s question all three eggs are cooking underneath a glass pan lid, and three slices of bread are browning in the toaster. 

“It’s not a bad difference.” Ranboo shrugs. “It’s welcome, actually. The last two months have been awful and I think Dream has taken it the hardest, but it’s up to him to explain why. It’s just nice seeing him so relaxed again. Did you put nether wart in his water flask or something?”

A low, sinister grip of pride slithers its way into George’s brain at Ranboo’s comment. Logically, he knows that it's more than unlikely that he has anything at all to do with Dream’s apparent contentment, but George’s heart soars with delight nonetheless. “No. I don’t even know what nether wart is.”

“Nether wart?” comes a new voice. George and Ranboo turn at the same time to watch Dream enter the kitchen, hair mussed from obvious rough treatment with a towel. Sapnap’s clothes fit as well as could’ve been hoped for, thankfully, and there’s a new bandage tied around the cut on his bicep. “Why’re we talking about that stuff? It’s useless.”

“No it isn’t.” Ranboo counteracts. “You just don’t know how to use it properly.”

The alarm for the bacon goes off a second after Ranboo and Dream dissolve into a squabble. George clicks it off and dishes the bacon up into three equal portions, leaving Ranboo in charge of buttering the toast while he then sees to the eggs. Some bustling moments later and George ushers the two beings to the kitchen table, beckons for them to sit, and when they do he puts two of the plates down in front of them. 

Ranboo stares at his portion with wide eyes. “Wait, this is all for us to eat now?”

“Yeah, uh, this seems a bit much, George.” Dream says with a frown. “You shouldn’t have spoilt us.”

George’s soul hurts.

“Of course it’s for now.” George says with a carefully light tone. He presents two sets of knives and forks and places them down onto the table, “This is just a standard breakfast, don’t worry about it. Dig in, I’ll put the kettle on.”

George only just manages to catch the supernatural gaze of shock passing between Dream and Ranboo before he turns back to the counter. Just _how_ awful had the last two months been, exactly?

“So, um,” Ranboo says around a mouthful of bacon. “we’re all okay. We’re hiding out at one of the abandoned Lust Legion outposts, Wilbur himself could barely remember where it was so we think we’ll be okay for another three days or so before we have to move on. Everyone … everyone misses you, Dream. I’m so happy that I’ll be able to tell them you’re okay.”

George begins to fill the kettle with water. It reaches max before Dream responds, his voice quiet. “I miss everyone too.”

The air in the kitchen falls still, after that. The melancholic energy is almost too much to bear. George fills three mugs with boiling water as soon as the kettle dings to completion and drops a teabag into each of them, calling a gentle question over his shoulder, “Anyone want any sugar?”

Dream huffs a low chuckle. “I mean, if you’re offering.”

And _wow_ , just as quick as it came, the tension breaks clean in half. Ranboo shrieks a shrill _‘Dream_!’ while George rolls his eyes, taking the teabags from the mugs and replacing them each with a splash of milk. He stirs a spoonful of sugar into every brew and carries two over to the table. “You’re vulgar. There’s a child present.”

“And I’m _scarred_ , now. I’m telling Techno.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Dream grins, looking down to where he uses his fork to push around a bit of egg. “But if you do, then I’ll tell Tommy about your little _ceremony_ with Tubbo —” 

“ _ou_ wouldn’t dare.” Ranboo’s expression is melting with serenity. “Wilbur would kill you.”

Despite the heavy involvement of names unknown to George, his heart fills with peace watching the interaction in front of him unfold. He leans against the island and cuts his slice of toast in half, layering it with a piece of bacon and some of his egg. He chews slowly as Dream and Ranboo share a small, lasting moment of laughter. 

“I can’t wait until all of this is over.” Ranboo says. He looks out into the kitchen, “I wish we had a place like this all the time. A real home, again.”

“We will one day.” Dream says softly. “I’ll die before we have to go back to how it was before, Ranboo. I promise you.”

The tender touch Dream presses to Ranboo’s arm is enough to warrant an aversion to George's gaze. It stings. It thickens the air George breathes with a gentle decisiveness, and he has _no_ idea why his throat threatens to constrict with a telltale wedge of raw emotion. George barely _knows_ these people, these _entities_ , but the empty sensation to his palm makes it feel almost as though it’s indistinguishable as to where Dream’s anguish ends, and George’s own begins. It’s unrecognisable, foreign, it’s — 

It’s _cosmic_.

A weighty vibration to George’s thigh brings him out of his stupor. He pulls his phone out from his bottoms and the sight of Sapnap’s contact lighting up his screen, warm and familiar, is enough to warrant an audible exhale of relief. 

“I have to take this,” George looks up. His heartbeat falters when he finds Dream’s eyes already locked onto his own, widened with a sharp lack of credence. George is nearly worried for a second that Dream somehow _knew_ the current turmoil of his inner monologue. “I’ll be back in a second.”

George leaves without any hesitation. He steps into the living room and swipes his finger across the screen to accept the call. He holds his cell close to his ear.

“Sapnap.” He breathes.

“ _George_!” Sapnap’s voice is a flood of heated ease. It calms George’s nerves tenfold. “ _Woah, everything okay, man? You sound kinda shaken over there_.” 

“No, no, I’m fine.” George’s smile is grateful against the phone. “I’m good. How about you? What are you calling for?”

“ _There’s a stupid fucking storm headed my way_.” Sapnap grumbles. “ _They’re suspending flights to and from Texas from tomorrow evening, so I’m coming home on the ten AM. I should be back to our place for twelve forty five, or so._ ”

“Oh, that sucks. I’m sorry you have to come back early.” George sighs. “I .. um, I’m kinda glad though. It’s been kinda crazy around here.”

“ _What do you mean, dude? Are you sure you’re okay?_ ”

“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s nothing bad, just something I’m probably gonna need to explain a few times.” George chuckles. “If I didn’t have proof you might not believe me.”

“ _You could tell me that the sky is green and I’d believe it, Georgie._ ”

“Stop being so _sappy_ , Simp-y.” George teases. “Alright, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“ _See ya. Love you._ ”

“You too.” 

Sapnap’s laughter is the last thing he hears before George hangs up. 

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_pitter, patter_

_pitter … patter_

_pitter, patter_

_…_

_pitter, patter —_

The door to Sapnap’s bedroom creaks open. The light flooding in from the hallway is disorientating, harsh in contrast to the gentle rapt of outside raindrops against the crystal clarity of the curtained window. George stirs, a shattered whine stuck to the sleepy inside of his throat, and he pulls Sapnap’s pillow over his head.

“George? Everything good?” The question is hushed, careful not to disturb the darkness of the nightfall. 

“ _Dream_.” George grinds out. “It’s _three in the morning_. Everything is as good as it was an hour ago, and the hour before that, and the hour before _that_.”

“ … okay.” Dream accepts after a few quiet moments. “Okay. Goodnight.”

The golden light of the ceiling lamp starts to fade out with another creak of the door hinges. George wants more than anything to turn back over and re-join the race to succumb to slumber, but the knowledge that four in the morning will hit in an hour and bring with it yet _another_ interruption presses firmly on those brakes. 

Once bedtime had hit yesterday night, on or around the clock striking eleven, George had offered up his bed so that Dream wouldn’t have to sleep on the couch. It was an easy compromise, as Sapnap’s bed is almost just as comfortable as George’s is, and George hated the idea of making Dream rest downstairs. He’d bid Dream goodnight once the demon was settled underneath his duvet, and snuggled deep into Sapnap’s comforter, the spiced, heavy scent of his roommate's cologne a naturally familial support, he’d fallen asleep within fifteen minutes.

But by twelve, Dream had popped his head in. 

George was flattered, at first — a welfare check, just for _him_? It was a compliment that spread like liquid candy throughout the blue and red networks of his veins, leaving him feeling faint and dizzy with rapture by the next time he drifted off. 

But then it happened again at one.

And at two.

Most recently again at three, and it was _infuriating_.

It is. Absolutely. George hadn’t heard much more of Dream and Ranboo’s conversation, after he’d taken Sapnap’s call, meaning that he’s yet to be filled in on the details of the apparent otherworldly war; but George is still able to find himself adamant that Dream’s enormous insistence to listen out for his breath every hour is owed to it. He can’t imagine that sleeping comes easily when there’s an entire opposition out for your blood, and it’s why — no matter _how_ hard George tries to convince himself that it is — it isn’t actually anything remotely close to infuriating.

Whether it be from the delirious lack of sleep, or the harrowing pull to Dream’s already magnetic gaze when he calls George’s name out across the night, George aches. He’s angry, _furious_ at the people responsible for causing this. Dream doesn’t even have a phone to set an alarm on.

By sheer force of will, he must just keep himself awake.

George’s lower lip wobbles against Sapnap’s pillow. It’s wrong. No matter what he’d done, whatever crimes he could be responsible for — Dream didn’t deserve it. He deserves to _sleep_.

And George can only think of one solution.

So, with a last gentle lungful of Sapnap’s pillow, George gathers himself upwards. He pushes away Sapnap’s comforter, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and lethargy splices itself in two by the time George grits his teeth. He might be running on empty but the fervour to get to his room thrums through his entire form. He pads forward until he’s in the hall, pushing the door to his room open with a subconscious fluidity indebted only to months of practised muscle memory. 

Dream shoots upright. He rubs at his eyes furiously, and George notices that his hair is just as wild as it was just after his shower. The duvet pools low around the bare skin at his waist. “George? What’s up? Is everything okay? Are you —”

“M’fine,” George grumbles, lifting the covers of the free side of the bed. “move over.”

Dream does as George asks. George climbs in, and his attempt to stifle the yawn that rises as soon as his head hits the cold linen of the pillow is poor.

“George,” Dream tries again, sliding his back down against the mattress until they lie face to face. The rush of warmth the action brings settles a fire deep inside George’s core. “what’s wrong? Is there something in your room? Do you want me to go and check it out?”

“There isn’t anything wrong.” George assures. The circles underneath Dream’s eyes look painfully deep. “Go to sleep. I’m right here. If anything happens, we’ll both wake up.”

George isn’t sure that anything known to him of this planet could’ve prepared him for the tremble of relief that washes over Dream’s entire body. The demon relaxes deep into the mattress, the rigid tension to his shoulders that George despises to see finally bowing to a resounding _snap_. “You’ll get me if you wake up first, right?”

“I’m right here.” Is all that George replies.

Dream watches him for a while. George stares back, a rumbling, blissful wave of repose singing a deeply mesmerising hymn of _cross your heart, George_ , _and make sure that you hope to die_. He sinks into it with a crashing air of calm. George thinks that he might actually even finally understand why green looks so close to yellow, the longer he stares at the iris of Dream’s eyes and finds nothing but the fiercely golden rays of a deity amongst men, a brother to the Sun itself. 

Dream reaches his hand out, bridging across the abyss of the dark to rest it on George’s throat. He cocks his index and middle fingers, bracing them against the underside of George’s jaw, and he rests his thumb against the V of George’s collarbone. The knuckles of his ring and pinky press underneath George’s chin, tilts his head up with a gentle air of control, and George’s shallow inhale hitches when Dream presses his two longest fingers deeper.

It’s only after the first few seconds of his pulse pounding against Dream’s skin does he realise what the demon is doing.

George all but melts.

“I’m here.” He whispers. 

Dream’s lips crook into a halfway smile. His fingers surrender position, then, and he gives a light squeeze of his free-splayed hand to each side of George’s neck before he pulls his arm back to his side.

“I know.” He murmurs. “I am too. Goodnight, George.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!! lordleo here!!! oh my fucking god!!!!
> 
> you guys have given me over FIVE HUNDRED hits already????!!! FIFTY KUDOS???!! what the FUCK 
> 
> huge apologies for the long delay on this update!! it’s probably obvious but i really wasn’t expecting this type of reception, so i took my time to make sure this chapter was as good as possible to reeeally start to open up the plot and the arcs i have waiting for you guys 😏 y’all ain’t ready haha i plan on putting my heart and soul into this silly little story
> 
> honestly, i owe you all such a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of the love so far it’s honestly so truly appreciated, you lot are my little gang of elites frfr <3 so insane
> 
> in other news! i made a twitter! follow @707L0RDLE0 for sneak peeks of chapters with regular updates on when i expect to put them out, lots of extra unrelated dnf short stories/headcanons, and most importantly ... signature Leo shitposts >:) and also pics of my mc singleplayer cause my shit bussin rn
> 
> drop your @ and i’ll make sure to follow you back!
> 
> as always let me know what you thought of this chapter in the comments, it helps us small writers out a big bunch :] shares/reviews on other sites are also very appreciated!!
> 
> see you all at chapter 3!
> 
> \- Lord Leo


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